


No One Mourns The Wicked

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Dark!Belle, F/M, Ghosts, Rumbelle - Freeform, With a sort of happy ending, ghost story, ghost!Rumpelstiltskin, halloween fic, season 3 divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 10:37:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21252020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: S3 divergence. Rumpelstiltskin sacrifices himself to defeat Pan, and Storybrooke returns to normal. But it will take more than a sacrifice to lay the darkness to rest, and in the midst of the paradox of it having no true host, it clings to the nearest desperate soul – the young woman on her knees in the street, howling with her loss.Belle knows there’s darkness within her. She doesn’t care. All she cares about is getting Rumpelstiltskin back…





	No One Mourns The Wicked

Belle stands alone in the cemetery. There is no grave. There was no body to bury. There wasn’t even a funeral. Rumpelstiltskin gave his life to save them all, and the world has already all but forgotten his sacrifice, taking their precious and petty and pathetic little lives for granted again already.

No one mourns the wicked. Belle knows that. She’s known it for years. It was the cautionary tale drummed into her all through her childhood. No one mourns the wicked. No one lays a lily on their graves.

Belle would lay a lily if she had a grave to lay it on, but she has nothing, no memorial to the love she has lost.

She should be sad. She should be mourning the loss of the man she loved and the man she got to spend so little time with. Even a lifetime together would not have been long enough to fit all of her love into, let alone the scant few weeks they had together in the wake of the curse breaking.

Belle is not sad. Belle is not mourning. It’s the age-old adage brought true: no one mourns the wicked. Belle is not mourning, but not because Rumpel was wicked. Belle is not mourning, because in this moment, she feels wicked herself.

No, Belle is not sad. All she can feel is anger at those who dare to forget the sacrifice that Rumpelstiltskin made for them. They bury it under the list of imagined wrongs that he committed against them; deep down, they’re glad he’s gone so that they no longer have to worry about the prices – always fair and just prices, not that they see that in their self-centred stupidity – that he will come to collect from them in their deals.

Something is stirring within Belle that she has never felt before. This seething anger is crystallising into something darker, much darker. Something that was not there before has now taken root inside her, clawing and gnawing and taking her pain and her loss and turning it into something tangible, something dangerous. She knows that it’s happening, and a small, scared part of her is terrified at the thing that she is becoming inside her own mind.

Rationally, she even knows what it is. The Dark One must always have a host: the poor, unfortunate soul who killed the previous host. In sacrificing himself and taking his own life, Rumpel has created a paradox, and the universe hates such things, seeking to rectify them as soon as possible. So, the Dark One has taken root in another host.

A host with such powerful negative emotions washing over her as she collapsed to her knees in the street, overcome with grief and pain and sadness and not one single person helped her, or even thought to ask if she was all right. Because hey, Pan was gone, and they got rid of Rumpel in one fell swoop too; they should be celebrating! Leave the Dark One’s whore on the ground where she belongs.

Belle wants to make they pay. She’s already hurting so much; her heart aches with her loss. Every time she sees them going about their business without a care in the world, it drives that pain a little deeper. Every time they speak to her as if nothing has happened and as if Rumpel wasn’t so hugely important to her, they twist that knife a little deeper. Are they doing it on purpose? Perhaps before, Belle would have given them the benefit of the doubt, but now she sees the world through a darker lens. An evil lens, that twists everything in front of it to evil too.

Belle is in agony now, and the blinding pain in her chest that takes her breath away every time she remembers Rumpel’s smile, that one that was just for her with nothing but love in it, is unbearable.

She needs to make it stop. She needs peace. But she’ll never have it, not whilst there is so much unfinished business that will never be put to rest until Rumpel is mourned. Not whilst this darkness is growing inside her.

Belle sits down on the cold ground. The part of her mind that is still her own is telling her that this is not the best idea; that she needs to be free to move on and live the rest of her life. That by doing this, she is simply trapping herself in a prison of sadness and pain and hatred, and she will never be rid of it.

The more primal part of her mind, a new addition since Rumpel’s death, is telling her that this is the only way for her to live now, and that if she goes ahead with it, she’ll feel better again. And if she only feels better again for a short time, then that’s all right. There will be plenty more opportunities to seek short-term relief. Right now, all she wants to do is to stop the pain of Rumpel’s loss from gnawing on her bones like a starving rat.

It’s simple enough math when one thinks about it logically. The source of all her problems and all the horrible things that she is feeling is the fact that she no longer has Rumpel. So, in order to buy herself a reprieve from that loss and a balm for this hurt, all she has to do is have Rumpel by her side again.

Magic can’t bring back the dead, she’s known that since long before she even met Rumpel and was exposed to his particular brand of magic. Magic cannot create life where there is none, but the deepest, darkest magic that Rumpel was a master of and everyone else feared, well, that can do all sorts of things.

It cannot create life, but it can perhaps create a facsimile of it.

Belle opens her bag and takes out the book of spells she found in the pawn shop, mixed in with all of Rumpel’s other magical things that were brought through to this realm with the curse, and she opens it to the right page. Ideally it should be performed on the grave, but there is no grave; there was no body.

Sometimes she wonders if Rumpel really is even dead, or if this thing that has begun lurking in her heart, the ever-present darkness that she had so lamented in his own time, is keeping him tethered to life. After all, the Dark One is immortal. Everyone knows that.

She hopes that this is the case. If it is, then her idea will work. There’s no body, there’s no grave, but there might still be a spirit, and if she cannot have her true Rumpel by her side, then a spirit will have to do. She cannot raise the dead, but she may just be able to lift their spirits.

Belle places her hands on the cold grass as she reads the incantation. A plea to the earth to release the soul from the body – not a problem, the body was destroyed, and the soul was freed with it at the time. That part shouldn’t be difficult.

Onwards to the next step, a sacrifice of blood to link the living and the dead. Belle picks up Rumpel’s dagger. His name is still etched into the side, as stark and clear as it ever was, but sometimes, if she holds it in just the right light, she can see her own name beneath the letters, ever so slight and faint, but undeniably there.

Something evil has taken root in her, and for all she had wanted Rumpel to be free of it, now that she feels its power coursing through her veins, Belle can quite see why he found it so intoxicating at the time.

She pricks her finger with the point of the blade, squeezing out a drop of blood and watching as it falls to the cold ground. The second part of the spell is complete. Now, for the grand finale, a wonderful denouement to her plans.

She takes Rumpel’s shawl from round her neck, the shawl that had been Bae’s. She wonders if perhaps she ought to have consulted Neal before embarking on this course of action, but she knows that he would only try to talk her out of it, and besides, he has his own problems to worry about. He’s grieving his father, yes, but there was too much bad blood there that never had a chance to be put right, and he has the living to worry about. Belle does not bear him as much grudge as she does the rest of them. Maybe she’ll spare Neal when the time comes.

When the time comes to do what? The voice in her head that’s entirely her own keeps asking her where she’s going with this plan and what she hopes to gain from it, but then her anguish drowns it out, and the moment of clarity is over.

Belle lays the shawl down on the ground over the drops of blood and presses her hands down against it. Something from life to bring the soul forth, and a final incantation.

There’s an unnatural breeze in the cemetery, and the pages of the Grimmerie flap wildly before the book slams shut with the finality of a spell cast from a place of such venom and pain that it will hold and stick for as long as it possibly can.

“Belle?”

Belle smiles, for she recognises that voice. It sounds whispery, far away, speaking to her from beyond the veil, indeed, but she would know Rumpel’s voice anywhere. Her Rumpel, the one she fell in love with back in the Dark Castle, the impish trickster with his quips and snips. The man Gold had been just as wonderful, but right now, it is her Rumpel that her heart aches for.

“It worked.” She almost can’t believe it, but then, Rumpel’s spells have always been kind to her. She thinks of the protection spell for the town line that he left for her. “It worked!”

“Belle, what’s going on?”

His voice is stronger now, and Belle almost doesn’t want to turn and risk ruining the illusion. What if she’s just imagining things now as a coping mechanism to deal with this grief?

But she must turn. She has to see him.

He’s there.

He’s not quite _right_, but he’s there.

His leathers and silks, his scaled, slightly gold-dusted skin, his claw like fingers, his dark, slate-grey eyes. It’s all there, just as she remembers from the old times, although he’s faded, his colours washed out like fabric that’s been laundered too many times. He’s not _all_ there, but he’s there enough, and that’s all that Belle needs.

“Rumpel!”

She scrabbles to her feet and runs over to him, throwing her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder. He doesn’t feel quite right either, a little like holding air that’s just a bit more solid than the rest of the air, like it might vanish into vapour at any moment.

But he’s _there_, in her arms where he should be.

“Belle, I don’t understand, what’s going on? What happened?”

“I brought you back!” Belle says, and she can’t keep the giddy excitement out of her voice. “Well, not entirely. I know that you can’t bring back the dead. But I called up your soul. Look!”

She takes his hand, dragging him over to the site of her spellcasting, squeezing tightly in case he vanishes out of her hold as soon as she looks away from him.

“Oh, Belle. Oh, Belle, please tell me you didn’t…”

Rumpel shakes his head as he takes in the blood-stained shawl and the Grimmerie on the ground. His expression is mournful.

“Belle, my love, you should have let me go.”

“Why?”

Rumpel just stares at her. “What do you mean?”

“Why should I have let you go? Why do I have to accept misery for the rest of my life? Everyone else is getting their happy endings; what did I do that means I don’t deserve mine?”

“Belle, you do deserve a happy ending. You deserve every happiness in the world, but you’re not going to get that from this… shadow.” He indicates himself.

“But I _am_ happy,” Belle protests. “I have you back, that’s all I need. I’m happy now.”

She doesn’t realise that tears have begun to fall until Rumpel reaches out to brush them away.

“Are you really?” he asks.

“Yes!”

“Belle, what you’ve done cannot be undone. The Grimmerie’s magic is too powerful for that. You know I only ever used that book for my darkest spells, and what you’ve done…”

He breaks off, looking into her eyes intently, and Belle knows that he can see it, the darkness inside her, the darkness that they now share.

“Oh no,” he breathes. “Oh, what have I made you become?”

Belle shakes her head.

“You haven’t made me become anything. I did this of my own free will. What you have made me, Rumpelstiltskin, is happy, and I couldn’t bear to let go of that happiness when it was cut short. I thought I’d lost you forever when you went to Neverland. I know I said that I would see you again, but there was a part of me that knew I maybe wouldn’t. I had you back for a day and a half and then I lost you again, for real this time. I had a day and a half of happiness with you!” She gestures towards the town beyond the cemetery gates. “Everyone out there will have a lifetime of happiness thanks to you! You gave up my happiness with you so that everyone else could have theirs! That’s not fair, Rumpel! I’m reclaiming my happy ending from you now!”

“Belle, this isn’t a happy ending!” Rumpel is pleading, but the darkness is clouding Belle’s vision now and she doesn’t care. She’s got him back, and that’s all that matters. “Summoning this shadow, this vision that I am, it will not bring you happiness! All it will do is hold you back from finding something good and true.”

Belle turns her gaze back on him, and he takes a step back with the force of the look she gives him.

“We had something good and true, Rumpel. We had true love, and you were just starting to see that and accept that we would be together forever. So many paths, but the only one you wanted was the one where you and I were together. So now, we can tread that path. Now, we can be together.”

“Belle, it’s not the same thing, this is…”

“I know it’s not the same. I know I can’t bring back the dead, no one can. But this is as close as I’m going to get, and if I have to settle for a shadow then I’d rather have that than nothing at all!”

The force of her emotion seems to have got the better of him, and he just gives a slow nod. He goes to pick up the dagger and the Grimmerie, but his hands go straight through them. By linking his soul to her blood, she is the only thing he will be able to interact with in this world.

Belle stows the items back in her bag, and they begin to make their way back towards the pink house that Belle has only recently come to call home. The silence between them is tense; Rumpelstiltskin’s soul does not appreciate being roused from the sleep of the dead like this, and Belle feels that he still does not fully understand why she had to do what she did, to save her breaking heart and her sanity.

For her part, Belle cannot understand why Rumpel is so upset with this course of action that she’s taken. He was taken from life before his time; certainly, he went on his own terms, but Belle knows that if she died of anything other than old age, she would welcome a second chance to be part of the world again. Well, it’s not exactly the same as being alive again, not able to interact with the world. Maybe it’s a case of all or nothing; maybe he would prefer death to this state of halfway between.

The part of Belle’s mind that is still clinging to the light in her heart tells her that she needs to let him go, that this cannot be anything less than torture for him to be here but not here, that she would not enjoy it if it happened to her.

The part that is giving in to the darkness tells her that right now, she needs him with her, by any means necessary, and maybe he should have thought about the consequences before he took himself away.

_He did it for the greater good,_ she thinks. _He was the only one who could save us all, and that was the only way. We would all be dead if it wasn’t for him._

The thoughts don’t help her, not when she thinks that she would rather everyone, including her, were dead, so that she doesn’t have to live with this pain anymore.

There’s a storm in the air as they walk side by side through the town. Ironic, really: the forecast had been for sunny skies. There’s not a single head they don’t turn as they pass through, the townsfolk all gawping at the sight of Rumpelstiltskin calmly making his way through the town, a vision of the impish yet all-powerful sorcerer he had always been in the Enchanted Forest, all of the fear that Gold inspired now increased four-fold as Rumpelstiltskin returns.

Belle smiles. That should scare them. They’ll think twice before thinking that they’re free from Rumpelstiltskin now. Oh yes, they thought they’d got rid of him, so relieved when he removed himself from the picture.

Now they’ll see. Now, they can’t escape fate. Now, they’ll pay.

_Pay for what_, a part of her asks. She brushes it aside. She can work that out later.

They thought that they were free of the Dark One, but Belle knows better. What darkness didn’t die with Rumpel lives on in her. It’s not something they’ll ever get rid of, and Belle’s going to make sure that they don’t forget it.

X

Belle is tired. She stares out of the window at the steel grey sky, wishing that she had the energy to do something, to feel something, anything. Anything except this darkness eating her from the inside and making her numb to the world. At first it had fed just on her happiness and positivity, leaving her with only pain and rage and grief, but now it’s taken those as well. She’s just a shell of her former self, exhausted by evil.

She wonders how Rumpel managed for three hundred years, before she comes to the horrible conclusion. Rumpel had something to fight for. He was determined to get back to Bae. Belle has nothing similar. Everything she could have fought for was taken from her, and she brought it back in shadow form, the shadow that hovers beside her, stroking her cheek softly with one claw. She doesn’t turn to look at him; she doesn’t have the will.

“You’ve got to let me go,” he whispers, and she’s heard the words so many times now that sometimes she hears them even when he’s not saying them. “It’s not too late, but soon it will be. Let me go, my love, and you’ll be free. You’ll move on, and you’ll be happy again, and you’ll love again, and you’ll fight this darkness. Please, sweetheart, let me go whilst you still have the chance.”

Over the last few years, the shadow that she brought back has become more and more tangible, more and more able to interact with the world around it. What began as a ghost is becoming frighteningly close to real, to breaking that cardinal rule of magic: _you can’t bring back the dead._

Soon there will come a time when even if she lets him, he won’t be able to go. Ghosts are souls with unfinished business on earth, unable to move on until that business is resolved. Rumpelstiltskin had no unfinished business when he died, but as soon as Belle grabbed his soul from the beyond and tethered it to her, pulling him back into life, she gave him some very unfinished business in the form of herself. The longer he stays – well, the longer she keeps him here – the more complicated that unfinished business will become.

She knows she has to let him go. He’s told her so every single day from the day she brought him back, so far in the past now that she can barely remember it. But just as he is becoming more inextricably linked back to life, Belle is becoming more inextricably linked back to him. He once described magic as a crutch he didn’t know how to live without.

Rumpelstiltskin has become Belle’s crutch, and she doesn’t want to know how to live without him. Without him, she fears that the darkness inside will simply swallow her whole. It has already consumed so much of her. Rumpel assures her that this is not the case, that letting him go will let the darkness go as well. Belle isn’t so sure, and it’s not a risk she’s willing to take. For as long as he is with her, she can fight against this darkness. It’s a losing fight, but it’s still a fight.

“Come on.” Rumpelstiltskin’s hand closes over hers. “Let’s go outside. Fresh air will do you good.”

Belle nods, and she lets him pull her up out of her chair and guide her out of the front door with a gentle hand on her back.

Storybrooke is so different now to how it was in its heyday. Belle remembers walking through the town with Rumpel having just brought him back. There were so many people around, all the shops were busy and bright and full of life.

There’s no-one here now. Everyone moved on. In dribs and drabs at first, then in an exodus when it became clear that the darkness was rapidly spiralling out of control. Belle didn’t care at the time. She quite enjoyed having the entire town to herself and Rumpel. He saved it, after all, why shouldn’t it be theirs after that sacrifice?

Now though, the sight of the place, fallen into such disrepair in the intervening years, leaves her chilled. The weather doesn’t help. The sun hasn’t shone since that first day, when sunny skies had been forecast and she had brought them a storm of darkness instead. Belle doesn’t miss much, but she misses the sun.

She leans closer into Rumpel’s side as they make their way down the main street, past Granny’s – long since boarded up, neon switched off permanently. Belle knows where they’re going. They always find their way back to the cemetery in the end.

She shakes her head.

“No, Rumpel. Please. I can’t. You’re the only thing I have anymore. I can’t let you go.”

“If you let me go, sweetheart, then there’ll be room in your life for more things. For light, and for living. You can’t stay here in a dead town with a dead love. Please, let me go. For both our sakes.”

“I don’t want to lose you again. I already lost you too many times. I can’t go through that pain again. It’s going to destroy me, Rumpel!”

She’s gripping his arms in an iron grip, gazing desperately into his face and hoping that he sees her fear. It’s the only thing she feels anymore, the fear of losing him completely. Why can’t he see that’s why she can’t let him go?

Losing him again will destroy her, if losing him the last time didn’t already, when the darkness crept into her heart and began to eat everything around it. Something logical in the back of her mind tells her that she can hardly be more destroyed than she already is, and maybe Rumpel is right, that losing him for this final time will be the first step in putting herself back together again.

“You’ll find me again, love. I’ll be right there waiting.”

“No. Please, no. I don’t want to wait. I want you here with me _now_. _Forever._”

This time, Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t say those fatal words of ‘what have you done?’ They both know what she’s done. They both knew it was only a matter of time before the magic would weave itself into them so intrinsically that she would never be able to let it go. Belle can feel the finality in her words, and the darkness deep within her smiles to itself. Now, they will never be apart.

They’ll be stuck here in this ghost town forever, neither of them able to move on, but they’ll be together. They’ll never lose each other again.

“Belle.”

He feels more solid now as he takes her in his arms and she crumples against him, all of her pain and her rage and her grief coming rushing back in a flood now that she has truly past the point of no return. The darkness continues to creep through her veins as she cries for everything that she has lost over the years, including Rumpel.

Because she never really brought him back. Magic can’t bring back the dead. She doomed his shadow to walk the earth, and in doing so, she’s now doomed herself. He’s still just as lost to her as he always was, even as she feels his arms around her.

“I’m so sorry,” she gasps.

“It’s ok,” Rumpel says. “The darkness is like that. Believe me, I know.”

They stand in the cemetery in the twilight for a long time, two lost souls manipulated by darkness, bound to each other and the earth.

They can’t move on, so they stay where they are. They can’t let go, so they keep holding each other.

A brief flicker of light amidst an ocean of darkness.

X

Henry watches the New England forest slide past the yellow bug, almost on autopilot. It’s been so long since they left Storybrooke that it almost feels like living there was in another life. So much has happened since they all got out and left it for the ghosts, but he’s never been able to put it fully out of his mind, not even now, with a family of his own and so much more life under his hat.

He’s never been back since they left; as far as he knows, no one has. Still, the road is familiar, and he doesn’t need a map to find his way. Not that Storybrooke was ever on any commercially available maps in the first place, but this intuition guiding him back to the place he was never really able to stop calling home even after everything went wrong there is, well, kind of creepy and reassuring at the same time.

After Belle went… He trails off the thought, wondering what the right word is. After Belle went mad? After Belle went dark? Neither of them really fit, because what happened to her was so tragic, it deserves more than a simple word to express it. None of it was her fault; any more than it was Rumpelstiltskin’s fault. The darkness got into her, the nearest desperate soul who needed its siren call, and she let it in readily, in so much pain and so full of grief that it was a balm to her, a solace. Once it was there, it took root, and took over, like a parasite, feeding her pain whilst feeding off it at the same time.

She never became a new Dark One, not whilst Rumpelstiltskin was still around in some shape or form, and Henry has to wonder what became of her in the end, after everyone around her stopped trying to help and just packed their bags and left her, a lost cause. Some people can’t be saved, they said. People have to want to change before they can be helped.

It’s more complicated than that, Henry knows it is. He’s seen so much in his life, especially when it comes to the dynamics of family and friends and good and evil. All he has to do is look to Regina to know that things are never cut and dried when it comes to darkness. Regina was the last to leave. The town had always meant so much to her, and she was determined to stay as long as she could. She’d bargained with Rumpelstiltskin’s ghost, and he had tried to bargain with Belle, and they had both told her over and again to let him go and to step out of the darkness.

The last time Henry saw Belle, she was almost as much of a ghost as Rumpelstiltskin was, and he wonders what that means for them now. He wonders how much of Storybrooke is even left now that the magic that brought it into being has long gone.

Henry shivers as he crosses over the town line. The orange paint has long since faded and the sign is so covered with overgrown foliage that it can barely be seen, but he knows exactly where he is. It’s as if someone walked over his grave. Ironic, really, since he’s likely the only truly living thing in the town now. As he enters the town proper, he can see how abandoned it is. Everything has gone back to nature; perhaps the magic imbued in the town has started to wear off and it is returning to the untouched Maine forest it had always been before the fairy tale characters landed in it so unceremoniously, over half a century ago now.

There’s not a single building that looks maintained in any degree, and the electric connections have long since gone. Despite everything, all Henry can feel is a deep sadness. He still has so many memories connected to this town. Some are good, some are bad, but it was such a formative part of his childhood and so many things happened here. He can’t help but grieve the loss of its otherworldly vibrancy.

Jacinda had offered to come with him; they could bring Lucy along and go on a road trip to see the place where Henry grew up, but he didn’t think that would be a good idea, with the possibility of vengeful ghosts roaming around. Now, he’s not so worried about the ghosts. He simply doesn’t want Jacinda and Lucy to see the place that he held so dear in a state of such disrepair.

Still, he didn’t come here simply for a nostalgia trip. He came here with purpose, and he’s going to fulfil it.

It’s time for Storybrooke’s ghosts to find peace at last. Maybe no one could help them at the time, when everything was still too fresh and raw and the darkness was still too untamed, but now, with so much time having passed, he thinks they deserve a second chance. They deserve to be mourned.

Henry continues to make his way through the town, out into the quieter residential areas where his grandfather’s pink house sits. It too is abandoned and broken, and Henry feels his heart sink. He had entertained visions of it being the only place left in the town with any degree of life in it, but then, when he thinks about what he came here to do, he realises how silly such a notion was.

He’s at a loss now, unsure where to find them if not in the place Belle had turned into her own Dark Castle, her own little hermitage. He abandons the bug in the driveway and considers stepping inside before deciding against it. He never went into Belle and Rumpelstiltskin’s home before, and after the ghost returned, it became almost sacrosanct. He can’t break that now.

He walks back into the town on foot, turning his collar up against the chill wind that has started to blow. He hadn’t particularly noticed the cold before, but now the weather is definitely taking a turn for the worse. Henry wonders if it is doing so purely in response to him. After all, the sun has not shone in Storybrooke ever since Belle brought Rumpel’s ghost back, and it certainly shows no signs of breaking with tradition now.

He can feel someone watching him, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, but he doesn’t turn to see what, or who, it is. So much time spent around fairy tales and stories has made him canny when it comes to the classic creepy tropes. He keeps on going, straight ahead. He never felt any fear of Belle or Rumpelstiltskin before he left the town. It was everyone else who was nervous, but Henry knew that he had nothing to fear. He and his father were about the only people who knew they’d be safe; that no matter how vindictive Belle might become in her darkness, Rumpelstiltskin would never allow anything to happen to Neal or Henry.

He comes to a halt in front of the cemetery gates. They’re open – wide open. They’ve been left like that purposefully, not just left to fall apart like the rest of the town. Strangely enough, this is the only place that feels even remotely alive, and Henry knows just why that is.

After all, Belle was more ghost than alive by the end. They’re probably more at home here, doomed never to move on and join those beyond the veil, however much they might yearn to.

Whoever it is, they’re still watching him, just over his shoulder as he steps into the cemetery and walks through the unkempt graves.

“How have you been?” he asks. “Did you get lonely after everyone left?”

“No.”

Henry glances to his side. It’s Belle, there but not there, almost translucent, everything about her in tones of grey and sepia and yet just a little bit too close to real to be a ghost.

“I had Rumpel,” she continues. “I always managed to convince myself that I didn’t need anyone else.”

Henry wants to ask what she is – shadow? Shade? Ghost? Spirit? Are all those things the same thing anyway? Did she die; is there a skeleton somewhere in this ghost town, or did she simply turn into a ghost? He suspects the latter, the darkness consuming her so much that there was nothing but her soul left. It seems rude to ask, so he goes for a different tactic instead.

“Where’s Rumpel?”

“Around. We’re always around.”

“You can’t move on, can you? You’ll be stuck here forever.”

Belle shrugs. “It’s not so bad. We have each other, that’s all we really need.”

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable… you know… elsewhere? In the great beyond, or whatever comes next?”

“Yes.” Belle’s voice is soft and could so easily be mistaken for the wind in the trees. “But that can’t happen, Henry. We’re stuck. We always will be. I made sure of that, in my own way. I thought it was what I wanted at the time. That’s the thing about darkness. You always think it’s what you want at the time, and it’s only much later that you realise that everything comes at a price.”

“Surely there has to be something I can do to help you. Every curse can be broken by something.” Their story is so tragic, their terrible fate borne not from a desire to do evil but from desperation, pain, loss. The same beginning as so many tragedies.

Belle shakes her head. “No one mourns the wicked.”

She’s gone then. She doesn’t vanish suddenly or fade away. She’s just gone, as if she was never there at all.

And Henry knows what he has to do.

It doesn’t take long to find what he needs; there’s more than enough tree branches around the place. Attempting to cut them takes longer as all the saws and blades in the hardware store are so dusty and out of use now that they just fall to bits as soon as he tries to use them. It takes him a couple of goes with the twine as well, until he finds some in good enough condition.

It’s not exactly a marble slab with names and dates and meaningful words on it, but nonetheless, it’s a marker, something stuck in the ground to show the world at large, even in this wholly abandoned place, that someone is dead and someone else cares that they are. Two little wooden crosses, even though there is nothing to bury.

He feels like he ought to say a few words, but none are forthcoming. What can he say that will encompass the decades of hurt and isolation that they’ve been through? So, instead, he just sits there on the ground and thinks, until he feels the warmth of the sun creep up over his back, and he smiles.

He knows what that means, and he can’t avoid giving in to the cliché. He turns to glance over his shoulder as the clouds over Storybrooke begin to clear for the first time in so very many years.

Belle and Rumpelstiltskin smile at him for the brief moment that they’re visible before they’re gone, gone for good this time. For that brief moment, everything is bright and colourful again, the grey and the sepia is banished to the past and they’re bathed in the light of whatever comes next.

Peaceful and free at last.

By the time Henry has walked back to the bug, it’s a truly beautiful day.


End file.
